The solution to pride

After James 4:1-10 

The spirit dwells

within us; more grace

is given, grace is

given to the humble.

Submission to God

buries the pride.

Draw near to God,

and he draws near

to you. Cleanse

your hands; purify

your hearts. Mourn

and weep; turn

the laughter of pride

to the mourning 

of faith. It’s

a conundrum:

humble yourselves,

and he will exalt you.

 

Photograph by Timo Wagner via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Sunday Readings

 

David’s God-Entranced Song – John Piper at Desiring God.

 

The Gift of Finitude – A.D. Donahue at Bandersnatch Books.

 

The Terrible Possibility of Adultery – Benjamin Vrbicek at Desiring God.

 

The Lie of Living Your Truth – Rosaria Butterfield at the Institute for Faith and Culture.

Self-made: not

After Philippians 3:12-14

The spotlight is on self;

the self loves the spotlight,

the attention, the flattery

(even if from the self),

the affirmation. Not

to mention control. 

Every good heresy

starts with self and

often ends with self.

I could brag, I suppose,

and say I did it all

my way (sounds like

a song), but the fact is

whatever self was, is

involved, he gets

the credit, because

myself was himself;

he made me his own.

A slow transformation,

to be sure, sometimes

even tortured. Whom

am I kidding? Not

sometimes. Try all

the time; I was

that stubborn.

 

Photograph by Sharon McCutcheon via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Expelling pride

After Philippians 2:1-4

It is a cancer, this thing

called pride, a cancer

eating away at the body,

consuming healthy cells

and organs, choking off

life, because that is what

it’s called to do,

take a life.

destroy a life,

obliterate a life.

Its cure, sometimes

painful, always a hard,

different thing, is

oneness, or being 

of the same mind, having

and sharing the same love,

existing in one accord,

a unity not possible

without oneness of Spirit.

Photograph by Hannah Valentine via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Certain things

After Philippians 2:1-4

The old saw: nothing

certain but death

and taxes. That’s it,

summing up life,

they knew. But one

more, not just death

and taxes, but one

more certain thing:

pride, the affliction

universal, the one

we all bear,

consumption of heart

and spirit, a disease

whose only known

cure is humility.

Photograph by Xuan Nguyen via Unsplash. Used with permission.

3 Puzzles, 2 Interpretations, 2 Outcomes

You’re called upstairs to the executive vice president’s office. He has a report with numbers suggesting web trends, or something clearly happening on social media. “What does it mean?” he asks. “No one seems to know. Should I be concerned?”

This is your area of expertise. You look at the data; they conform what you had already been seeing and warning about for some time. You pull out your mobile and do two searches. You look quickly at Google Analytics.

As you look at the executive VP, you know you have two options. You can tell him what he wants to hear, that there’s no problem and someone is just overreacting. Or you can tlel him the truth.

“It’s bad news,” you say.

The prophet Daniel was called before King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon on two different occasions, to interpret the king’s dreams after all the diviners and court magicians had either failed or claimed they didn’t know. Both times it was difficult news – first, the eventual end of the Babylonian Empire, although not in Nebuchadnezzar’s lifetimes; and second, because of his pride and disregard for God, he would live among the animals for seven years.

Daniel’s interpretations were correct. And both times, despite the bad news for the king, Daniel and Daniel’s God were honored by Nebuchadnezzar. Chapter four of the book of Daniel is in Nebuchadnezzar’s own voice, and he recounts how, at the end of seven years of what we would likely today call insanity, he called out and paid homage to God.

After Nebuchadnezzar’s eventual death, the empire experiences a rather extended period of instability, with relatively short reigns by the succeeding kings. Daniel is still around when Nebuchadnezzar’s great-grandson, Belshazzar, is holding a state dinner for 1,000 nobles while the city of Babylon is under siege by the Medes and Persians. The king and his guests are startled to see words being mysteriously written on a wall, and Daniel is called to interpret the meaning of the “handwriting on the wall.”

It’s bad news. In fact, the Babylonian empire would fall that very night. Too late, the king realizes it was a mistake to take the golden vessels of the temple in Jerusalem to use as banquet dinnerware.

“Belshazzar did not act ignorantly,” says John Lennox in Against the Flow: The Inspiration of Daniel in an Age of Relativism. “As Daniel forcefully pointed out to him, he was responsible for his attitude and behavior. He acted against the evidence.”

The worlds of business and politics are far removed from the days of Nebuchadnezzar, Babylon and absolute rule. But the basic human condition of pride, relying on our own strengths and deliberately ignoring the obvious, is not.

For the past several weeks, I’ve been discussing John Lennox’s Against the Flow. The post covers Chapter 4, “The Testimony of Nebuchadnezzar,” and Chapter 5, “The Writing on the Wall.”

Painting: The Feast of Belshazzar by Rembrandt Van Rijn (1635); National Gallery, London.

My Precious

I am somewhat embarrassed to say this, but my wife has a name for my BlackBerry. You know, that thing we grownups wear like a toy gun and holster on our belts? That thing that buzzes my hip like a little friendly bumble bee, waiting impatiently for me to pay attention?

My Precious.

Yes, that’s what she’s calls my BlackBerry, My Precious. Like Gollum. But I won’t bite off Frodo’s finger for it, that’s for sure. Well, I don’t think I would.

So what is it about Blackberrys and other smart phones that will make us ignore our kids and spouses, ignore where we’re driving on the highway, and turn our attention away from the most compelling news on the television set? What is it that so mesmerizes us?

Standing in the lunch line in our company cafeteria this week, I looked up from my BlackBerry to see that eight other people in line with me – all eight – were doing exactly the same thing as I was.

And then there was the time I interviewed a job candidate whose BlackBerry buzzed, he looked at the name of the sender, and apologized for having to take the call – from another possible employer. That ended the interview on the spot.

We all have our reasons and our excuses, but the real answer is that that little piece of computerized, connected equipment is all about us. The Great Sin.

C.S. Lewis doesn’t shy away from the hard subjects. So far in our discussion so far of Mere Christianity, we’ve seen him tackle everything from morality, belief and tolerance to sexuality, marriage and behavior, among others.

In this chapter, it’s The Great Sin.

It’s the one we’re all guilty of. The one we know intimately. The one that – for Christians – is indeed The Big One. The one that gets in the way of everything.

Pride, or self-conceit.

And it’s not an exclusively American sin. No, this one transcends cultures. If you want proof, the personal, portable phone can be found in every country around the world. Some countries are even worse than the United States.

I never expected to be thinking of my BlackBerry as The Great Sin.

But I think that’s what it is.


Our discussion of Mere Christianity is being hosted by Jason Stasyszen and Sarah Salter. To see more posts on this chapter, "The Great Sin," please visit Jason's site, Connecting to Impact.

Photograph: Woman Texting by Petr Kratochvil via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.